Keep Your Eye on the Kid: The Early Years of Buster Keaton [Hardcover]

Catherine Brighton (Author)

Book Description

Age Level: 5 and up | Grade Level: K and up

FAMOUS AT FOUR!

 

Four-year-old Buster Keaton became one of the best-known comedians of his age and inches when his father threw him across a vaudeville stage, shouting “Keep your eye on the kid!” The crowd roared as he easily landed on his feet and instantly became a star.  As Buster grew, he set his sights on the budding world of Hollywood and went on to become one of America’s most beloved silent-film stars. Airy detailed illustrations evoke small-town USA in the early 20th century. Told in Buster’s voice, this captivating biography introduces young readers to a boy who became an American icon and changed the face of comedy and the film world forever.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

In this vivid account of Buster Keaton’s early years, he calls himself a “backstage baby,” performing in his parents’ vaudeville act from childhood. Despite his father’s disapproval, Keaton fell in love with movies and later learned the film business at a friend’s studio. The story ends with Keaton in charge of his own studio. Written in first person, the text consists of a few simple, conversational lines per page. In the author’s note, Brighton mentions the difficulty of separating fact from fiction since Keaton was noted for telling good stories, including the anecdote (illustrated in the book) in which a tornado sucks the boy out the window and sets him down, unharmed, on Main Street. With cartoon-style panel layouts, clean line drawings, and washes in muted colors, aspects of the enticing illustrations are reminiscent of art Keaton could have seen as a child in Little Nemo comic strips and the picture books of Maurice Boutet de Monvel. The bibliography and filmography are too short, but this is a fitting tribute to a movie legend. Grades 3-5. --Carolyn Phelan

Review

Kirkus Reviews Starred Review

Born on the road to vaudevillian parents, “Buster” Keaton earned his nickname from fellow performer Harry Houdini after falling down several flights of stairs as a young child. That was but the beginning of a notable stage and film career highlighted by often-elaborate stunts that made him one of the first and greatest comic movie stars ever. In a short first-person account illustrated with precisely detailed period scenes, Brighton traces Keaton’s childhood in vaudeville and his introduction to the then-nascent art of filmmaking. Even while depicting a speeding locomotive demolishing a house and other renowned movie moments, her art has a formal air that perfectly echoes her central figure’s distracted, expressionless demeanor. Like Don Brown’s Mack Made Movies (2003), this engaging look back at the silver screen’s silent era captures the heady excitement of making—and watching—the early classics and can’t help but lead a new generation of viewers into rediscovering them. (author’s note, recommended sources and films)

 

The Horn Book Magazine 

 

(Primary) When comedian Buster Keaton was a child performer in vaudeville, the audience preferred him not to smile, and his dad would whisper, “Face,” to remind him to keep a serious expression no matter what the antic. In this picture-book biography, art imitates life through a deadpan text that outlines Buster’s life from birth to his early days in Hollywood. “As for school, I went only one day. Miss What’s-Her-Name said, ‘You, Keaton, give me a sentence with the word delight.’ Without thinking, I said, ‘It’s dark, turn on delight.’” Brighton uses comic-book frames masterfully. On some pages, narrow horizontal frames show a perspective differing from the main illustration, while on others two vertical frames propel the action. Exceptions come at pivotal points in the narrative. In one, Buster fiddles with a movie camera; two vertical frames show this moment, one from far away, and the second as a close-up revealing the parts of the machine. The text imparts the importance of the variation: “Gee, that thing, I loved it. Just the feel of it.” Appended are an author’s note, a brief bibliography of adult books, and a list of Keaton films available on DVD that invite further exploration of the man and his movies. b.c.

 

Booklist

In this vivid account of Buster Keaton’s early years, he calls himself a “backstage baby,” performing in his parents’ vaudeville act from childhood. Despite his father’s disapproval, Keaton fell in love with movies and later learned the film business at a friend’s studio. The story ends with Keaton in charge of his own studio. Written in first person, the text consists of a few simple, conversational lines per page. In the author’s note, Brighton mentions the difficulty of separating fact from fiction since Keaton was noted for telling good stories, including the anecdote (illustrated in the book) in which a tornado sucks the boy out the window and sets him down, unharmed, on Main Street. With cartoon-style panel layouts, clean line drawings, and washes in muted colors, aspects of the enticing illustrations are reminiscent of art Keaton could have seen as a child in Little Nemo comic strips and the picture books of Maurice Boutet de Monvel... this is a fitting tribute to a movie legend.— Carolyn Phelan

 

 

*Starred Review * Publishers Weekly, Also the “Featured” Review in the April 17, 2007 issue of PW Children’s Bookshelf Newsletter

Brighton (My Tour of Europe by Teddy Roosevelt Age Ten) follows the great silent actor and filmmaker Buster Keaton from his birth to vaudeville parents to his early 30s, when he emerged as a daring comic auteur. The helicopter-parented generation should find the stories of Keaton's itinerant, rough-and-tumble showbiz life tantalizing: he got his start at age three when his father literally threw him across the stage ("Keep your eye on the kid!"), and he attended only one day of school ("Yep, I got expelled for wisecracking, and that was it. I never went back. Ever"). Brighton has created many picture biographies, and this may be her best effort yet. The tough-talking first-person narration has the cadence of someone who was treated as an adult almost from birth; the detailed images evoke the mise-en-scène of silent movies and give a dreamy grace to even the most slapstick moments. Readers of any age will close the book with an itch to see Keaton's movies—or at least catch his most famous scenes on YouTube. Ages 5-8. (Apr.)

 

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 5 and up
  
• Hardcover: 32 pages
• Publisher: Roaring Brook Press (April 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 159643158X
• ISBN-13: 978-1596431584
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 10.1 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #118,976 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #27 in Books > Children's Books > Arts, Crafts & Music > Performing Arts > Film
  • #37 in Books > Children's Books > Biographies > Performing Arts

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Early Years Of Buster Keaton - A Biography For Children, January 12, 2009

By 

Janette Fuller (Willis, Texas) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Keep Your Eye on the Kid: The Early Years of Buster Keaton (Hardcover)

"Keep Your Eye On The Kid; The Early Years Of Buster Keaton", by Catherine Brighton, is a biography for children.

Little Joe Keaton was born in a boarding house in Piqua, Kansas. His parents were traveling show people and Joe spent most of his young life traveling across the country.

One morning Joe took a nasty fall down the stairs. Harry Houdini picked him up and said, "Gee, that was some buster the kid took". The name stuck and Joe was known as "Buster Keaton" from then on.

Buster was incorporated into his parent's comedy show and was known for the sad look on his face.

When he was old enough to leave home, Buster moved to New York and met his vaudeville friend Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle. Buster worked with Roscoe until he went to California and opened his very own movie studio. His most famous films were made in the 1920s and Buster became a famous silent movie star.

This book features full-page illustrations that add lively detail to the story. The text consists of two or three sentences on each page. The information in the book is factual and entertaining.

There are very few children's picture books that tell the story of the vaudeville era in America. I think this book will send children back to the library or the internet to search for more information about these early entertainers. There is a bibliography at the end of the book that lists all the Buster Keaton films that are now available on DVD.

I have never seen a Buster Keaton film but I am sure going to find one to watch. I am putting "Steamboat Bill, Jr." on my must-see list.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How it's done, April 2, 2008

By 

E. R. Bird "Ramseelbird" (Manhattan, NY) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Keep Your Eye on the Kid: The Early Years of Buster Keaton (Hardcover)

Have you ever seen an author go about their merry way, making books, minding their own business when BLAMMO they suddenly come out with a title that knocks everyone's socks off? I'm sure you have. The thing is, I'm sure that author/illustrator Catherine Brighton put just as much effort into her previous books (My Napoleon, The Brontes, and The Fossil Girl: Mary Anning's Dinosaur Discovery, amongst others) as she did her newest title, "Keep Your Eye on the Kid: The Early Years of Buster Keaton". Be that as it may be, this book is far and away one of the most impressive picture book biographies I've stumbled over in a very long time. It's a visual stunner that somehow manages to tell the story of Buster Keaton's life without prettying up the past or gumming up the facts. Even if you have never read a picture book biography that blew you away, this title will redefine how you think about faithful biographies for kids. To say nothing of how fun it is.

He was born into a troupe of traveling show people, and the stage was always his home. "I sat on frogs' knees and I talked to wooden dummies while Dad and Mom did their act." It didn't take long before Buster (so nicknamed for a fall or "buster" he took when he was very young) got in on the business himself. He'll tell you a tornado sucked him out of his home, plopping him on Main Street, and maybe that could account for how well he could take a fall. In time it was movies that earned his real love. After pairing up with Fatty Arbuckle the two went on to create films together, thereby launching Buster on the path to fame, fortune, and stardom later down the line.

If I were to condemn an author I knew to a life of unending woe and sorrow, I would probably tell them that they could only write faithful picture book biographies of complex people for the rest of their days. Not everyone can do it, you know. It's an art. Somehow, you have to synthesize a person's entire LIFE into 32 pages. On top of that, you have to be honest and not fudge the facts, while at the same time keeping your book kid-friendly and appropriate. And what if, like Buster Keaton, your hero had a lousy childhood? What then? Well take a couple tips from Catherine Brighton here. First of all, she was smart enough to limit her scope to "The Early Years of Buster Keaton". Now Keaton didn't have the happiest of childhoods, but Brighton doesn't skirt the issue. She tells this story in the first person, Keaton's point of view, with simple sentences. The book doesn't say that his father was a bad person, but at the same time adult readers will note that this was a dad who threw his son across a stage regularly and kept the family moving so that they could avoid child-labor laws. Some might accuse the novel of approaching this history without enough emotion, but like Keaton's deadpan stage face, it doesn't take much to delve beneath the surface and get a true feeling for Keaton's wants and needs. The Author's Note at the back clears up any confusion a person might have after reading this tale, but the story itself is the perfect blend of text and image. There are never more than three sentences on a given page, and yet we get a full sense of Buster's career right from the start.

The art complements the action so completely that it's hard for me to know how to begin to describe it. First of all, when Brighton recounts two of the stories that Keaton told about himself (being sucked out of a window by a tornado and "taking a buster" in front of Harry Houdini), the accompanying picture takes on a myth-like quality. Little Keaton wears his standard unsmiling face in both of these instances, making it feel as if they're simply part of the larger movie that is his life. Little details are spotted throughout such pictures as well. I loved the glimpse of Struwwelpeter (a German children's book that made a mockery of morality tales) we get as Keaton lands on Main Street. Or the way the date of Buster's birth soars towards the reader from the porch of a rooming house, which in turn is framed to look like a movie screen right from page one.

Brighton's style is akin to that of David Wiesner. She uses similar crisp clean lines, but while Wiesner likes to look at shading and tones, Brighton prefers an elegant two-dimensional quality. She loves her angles and dimensions. The perspective in this book is impressive as well. Sometimes you'll be looking down on the action and at other times you're on the level. Brighton borrows some comic book techniques as well, incorporating them seamlessly into the whole. Sometimes words will appear on a page to highlight the action. When Buster and his dog fly into the street there is an accompanying "WOOOSH!" with letters that hang in the air, as physical and tangible as the pup above them. Generally Brighton prefers single words in a scene. "FACE!" "OUT" "MAGIC", to name a few. That's not her only homage to the comic form either. Occasionally on the top of the page thin panels will show trains moving in various states and at various times, indicating Keaton's life on the road. In fact, if you page through the book and watch for the train you can almost see it become the one that bursts through Keaton's house as he films a scene from One Week. Incredible.

Brighton likes to repeat her images as well. When young Buster gets sucked out of his window by a tornado he falls through a window in a manner very similar to older Buster's well-known gag with the falling wall (where he remains uncrushed because of a door). Also, when Buster as a child sees a train coming towards an audience in a film (thereby frightening the people who didn't understand movies yet), that pairs brilliantly with the moment where we see Keaton filming a scene where he is blasted aside as a train plows through his ramshackle house.

Can I praise the Bibliography too, while I'm at it? Now I happen to feel that even the smallest picture book deserves a good Bibliography and I can see that Ms. Brighton is inclined to agree. Not only does she give Some Sources for further Keaton reading but she's even careful to include a list of Some Films that are Keaton movies currently available on DVD. Not all his work is yet available in that format, so it's good of her to indicate what you CAN see rather than taunt you with what you cannot.

It's odd to me that there aren't more bios of silent film stars out there for kids. I mean, silent comedies are just as funny to children as they are to adults. Ipso facto, shouldn't the stories about the people who made them be fun? I've had kids ask me for Charlie Chaplin books before, but there just isn't that much stuff out there. So kudos to Brighton for her choice in this matter.

This book begins with a mildly tweaked quote from a placard that comes at the beginning of the film, Sullivan's Travels, (which is such a great movie anyway). It reads, "To the memory of those who made us laugh: the motley mountebanks, the clowns, the buffoons, in all times and in all nations, whose efforts have lightened our burden a little, this picture (book) is affectionately dedicated." No clown could ask for a higher honor than a book of this nature. Droll, witty, beautiful, and factual, it fulfills every requirement you could have of a picture book biography, rewarding us every time we read and reread it. Truly amazing. Truly fantastic.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Keep your eye on the book-it's headed for collectors status!, May 21, 2008

By 

Robert Badgley (St Thomas,Ontario,Canada) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Keep Your Eye on the Kid: The Early Years of Buster Keaton (Hardcover)

"Keep your eyes on the Kid" is a beautifully illustrated and penned childrens book by author Catherine Brighton.She brings a unique blend of first person narrative,easy to comprehend language keyed to her demographic(6-10 years?)which all pertains to a real and famous individual;none other than screen legend Buster Keaton.The title comes from the exhortation his father Joe would use when he would toss little Buster around the stage.
The book is about 32 pages long and comes in at a respectable 10"x 10" size.Its' dust jacket mirrors the inner books actual front and back,so if for some reason the jacket gets lost or damaged it will still retain its' original look.
Ms.Brighton has combed several sources for her research and she lists "some"(sic) on the page back.From her sources she then extrapolated them into a first person narrative,in easy to understand text and with a good flow to it throughout.
The entire volume is enchanced with the lavish illustrations included on every page which further draws the reader into the narrative world that unfolds on each page.
Not only a good book from the stand point of just being a good read for children,it is also educational along the way.And I cannot find any fault(fact wise)in the authors' narrative at all which is all the more laudable.She takes the reader from Keatons birth,to his vaudeville days,onto his teaming with Arbuckle and ending with his first successful solo foray into motion pictures.
In conclusion this is just a wonderful volume on all counts;from the easy to read and understand narrative,to the non-fictional story,to the lavish illustrations which abound throughout.Because it doesn't take literary liberties with the facts it is the perfect educational tool also.
I recommend it highly.I would also heartily recommend this volume to all Buster Keaton fans out there.In fact I predict that the day this volume goes out of print it is going to quickly become a collectors item.Keep your eyes on that book!